Welding starts fire, guts quonset Friday

By Alan Carman
The Imperial Republican
    Shortly after 1:00 Friday afternoon, June 12, the fire whistle sounded for a structure fire two and a half miles east of Imperial. A quonset owned by
Eric German was fully engulfed in flame when the Imperial Volunteer Fire Dept. arrived on scene.
    With the high winds blowing and the doors open on both ends of the structure, it didn’t take long for the fire to spread throughout the building, which was loaded with tractors, vehicles, oxygen and acetylene bottles, used oil barrels and everything else a typical farm shop contains.
    IVFD set up and immediately paged for mutual aid from Lamar and Wauneta. With all of the dangerous explosive devices inside the building, the firemen had to fight the fire from a distance.
    It didn’t take long before Imperial had depleted all the water their trucks had. The closest water was a two and a half mile trek back to the 12th street hydrants.
    In the time it took to get more water, there was no saving any of the contents in the building. Wauneta and Lamar both showed up with tankers full and several of the ag businesses in town sent water trucks.
    During the fire, there were explosions going off frequently, with one of the explosions blowing the west doors off the buildings hinges. The three departments on scene did a good job making sure the fire didn’t spread into the trees or pasture that was right next to the building.
    Imperial EMS had both ambulances on scene, doing health checks of the firemen when they finished a shift fighting the fire. No injuries were reported.
    The Imperial Fire Dept Auxiliary brought out cold refreshments for the firefighters. Despite the strong winds, temperatures were in the 90’s and it didn’t take long for firefighters to wear down from the heat.
    The State Fire Marshall’s Office sent an investigator to the scene. He determined that the cause of the fire was left over heat from some welding that was done earlier in the shop.
    IVFD had 22 firefighters on scene with all of their rural trucks,
WVFD sent three trucks and seven firefighters and LVFD sent two trucks with five firemen. Emergency Management was also on scene.
Jaws and EMS Training
    On Thursday, June 11, the Imperial Fire Dept. and Imperial EMS held a simulated car crash event for training. The main purpose of the training was to find out if the two rescue units could be used on their own, if the other was broken down and to see if the firemen who were not in charge of  the jaws team could handle the scene if the jaws captains were not present.
    Jaws Captain, Wade Courter said the training went very well. Two cars were used with Unit 60 working on one car and Rescue One working on the other.
    The training also gave the firemen and EMT’s a chance to work together inside the vehicles while performing a rescue and figuring out if there were any issues that needed to be addressed. Courter said the training was good for all involved.
South Fork Fire
    The Southwest Strike Team put out a call for help Thursday, for firemen to help with the South Fork Fire.
    IVFD sent a quick attack with one fireman to the scene to watch for hot spots Thursday night. The unit made it back to Imperial just in time to make it out to Friday’s fire.